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Saturday, February 19, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
Dealing with Obnoxious Boomers, Part One of a 30, 216 Part Series
One fine autumn day, seated in a seat in a course called Traditional Grammar, back in my cinnamon-bun fueled undergrad years at UBC, I was introduced by the exquisite Professor Laurel Brinton to the difference between exclusive and non-exclusive adjectives.
Stay with me, breathe, it will be okay. I will very shortly leave the subject of grammar and get onto juicier things like sarcasm and possible sexual perversion.
Anyway, the difference between exclusive and non-exclusive adjectives goes like this:
Sentence A: I'm very attracted to your beautiful mother.
Sentence B: I'm very attracted to your beautiful sister.
Okay, so if we can assume that the hearer only has one mother, the adjective 'beautiful' in sentence A is obviously non-exclusive. It is clearly not trying to sort out a beautiful mother from one more bovine, or possibly ovine, in countenance. But in Sentence B, there could be a raft of hideous sisters, and the speaker is singling out only the beautiful one for his amorous intentions. So there is ambiguity if you don't know the sisters, perhaps even if you do. Is 'beautiful' here exclusive - I only want your beautiful sister, not those harpies who share her DNA, or non-exclusive - You have one sister who happens to be beautiful, and she rocks me like a Helen of Troy rocked that little crapweasel Paris.
So what do I mean by 'obnoxious boomers', then? Well, allow me to invent a further category. The sort-of-but-not-necessarily-exclusive adjective. I don't believe every single last solitary boomer to be obnoxious and inviting contempt. Certainly not the wonderful Prof Brinton, for example. Or my super cool mom and dad. But as a group. . .yeah, pretty obnoxious.
Which leads me to my post.
Dealing with Obnoxious Boomers
Part One of 30 216 (roughly, if the Lord tarries)
In my experience, boomers are adept at sticking their noses into the business of other people, younger people mainly, and offering advice. This is never, never a good idea. Boomer or not, giving unasked for advice is, in terms of social etiquette, equal to a leaky facial ulcer on a salad bar attendant. To those raised properly (as it is no longer fashionable to say, but so what), it marks you out as having been raised by particularly annoying wolves or perhaps angler fish.
AHA! You may exclaim. YOU JENNY YOU ARE OFFERING ADVICE, you steaming hypocrite!!!
I calmly and fetchingly ask you to take another breath, and point out that you were not compelled at taserpoint to visit the Holy Mammoth; you are here and reading of your own volition. Can we move on please.
Now, the species of homini boomera obnoxici really seems to have it in for mothers of young children. Of course, mothers of young children are attacked by all age groups at all times and in all terrain, but that's beside the point. This post is about boomer attacks in particular. The boomer, whether male or female, has a particularly cutting and trenchant form of attack, and it is in the best interests of the Xer/ whatever the next one after that is called to be well appraised of the boomer attack style, the better to meet it when it occurs.
Further to this I shall present a couple of stories/ dialogues, and then a seminar about the stories. These dialogues are recorded as factually as I can remember them (this is true of Mammoth storytelling generally, as the bare facts are really much funnier than any exaggeration or embellishment of them. Plus The Mammoth feels exaggeration to be a form of lying, and lying is both immoral and really unclassy. Henceforth you need never cry in astonishment, "O sweet Thor, did that really happen!?" The answer, gentle reader, will always be yes, unless clearly stated otherwise. Klar?
The Scene
A beach somewhere in Victoria
February 2011
I was sitting at the neighbourhood beach. Yes, I live near a beach; however windswept and rocky, it is a beach nonetheless, upon what F Scott Fitzgerald called 'the ragged edge of the world', the west coast of North America. And yes, you can sit on it in February without anything that you are fond of freezing and falling off. If you are reading this in Ontario and feeling jealous, can I just point out that you, too, are allowed to live here? That we are not surrounded by barbed wire and alsatians? It's a large country, but it's a free one. Okay? So no bellyaching. Google U Haul and leave me alone.
Anyway, I had two of my daughters with me, the 7 year old and the 3 1/2 year old. They were climbing all over the rocks as they have done, literally, since they could crawl. And yes, I know what literally means.
What followed were boomer encounters - two of them - within ten minutes of each other. My facebook friends have already heard the first dialogue, perhaps; they could skip to the second or read anyway for the elegant prose experience; that's up to them. Here we go with the first one.
Obnoxious Boomer Dialogue #1
A female boomer approaches Jenny as she minds her own business perched upon one of Victoria's many Interesting Rock Formations, happily slurping coffee and feeling some Actual Sunshine on her face.
Female Boomer: I see your children are down there playing on the rocks.
Jenny: Yes, that's right.
FB: Aren't you worried about them?
Jenny: No. (returns attention to consumption of tasty hot beverage)
FB: They have bare feet.
Jenny, taking in this fact without surprise and feeling the pleasant tingling sensation of impending sarcasm deployment combined with caffeine high: Yes, they do.
FB: They could get A Splinter!
Jenny, puzzled at the notion of gettting 'A Splinter' from bare rock formations: 'A Splinter'? It's okay, my kids have grown up on these rocks. They're fine.
FB: They're hard to get out, you know. They can be really Small. (mimes Small Splinter sticking in her finger)
Jenny: Is that right.
FB: Have YOU ever had A Splinter? They're really painful, you know!!!
Jenny: No, I'm forty years old and I've never had a splinter.
FB, whether testing her powers of counter-sarcasm with clumsy, spastic results or just really pathetically credulous I'm still not sure: OOH!!! Lucky YOU!!!
Exit Female Boomer, crazily, stage right.
Musical Interlude, maybe a little Lauren Hill for queenship/inspiration
ten minutes later. . .
Obnoxious Boomer Dialogue #2
Male Boomer, loudly and obnoxiously: DO YOU HAVE A LITTLE GIRL DRESSED UP IN GREEN
(Stay tuned for the special section of our following seminar, What I Should Have Said)
Jenny, looking up in a texting-induced fog combined with the afterglow of previously deployed sarcasm plus a caffeine high plus confusedly picturing a juvenile elf: . . .Huh? No!
MB: YOU DONT HAVE A LITTLE GIRL DRESSED IN A GREEN SUIT!
Jenny, remembering that Bridget is wearing a fuzzy teal pajama zip up thing because Jenny had lost the Battle of Oh Would You Please Just Wear Something Normal For Once earlier that day: Oh! Oh, yes, I do. Yup. Yup I do. Why.
MB: SHE IS DOWN ON THE ROCKS RIGHT BY THE WATER.
Jenny, glancing down to see that Bridget is, indeed, within 5 kilometers of Water: Yes, she's right there. That girl next to her is her older sister, see, the one RIGHT next to her. The one that looks like Janis Joplin on a bad day.
(Disclosure: I didn't say that last thing out loud. See, I told you you'd always know)
MB: WELL A MINUTE AGO SHE WAS RIGHT BY THE WATER. ONE SLIP AND SHE COULD HAVE FALLEN IN. WHILE YOU WERE /TEXTING/ (special weapons-grade judgemental obnoxious emphasis placed upon this last word in addition to the baseline obnoxiousness) YOU WOULDN'T HAVE EVEN NOTICED
Jenny: Thanks, I really can't get enough advice from boomers. (this, in contrast, is exactly what I should have said)
MB, turning a shade of alizarin that he would no doubt have insightfully described as 'red': WELL I'M WILLING TO TAKE YOUR SHIT FOR THE SAKE OF PREVENTING A POSSIBLE /TRAGEDY/!!!
Jenny: Okay, see you, bye bye.
Exit Male Boomer, stage left, flouncing as much as a (presumably) straight male will allow himself to flounce.
Now. This leads me to the next section of this post, and an exclusive and useful feature, indeed, of The Holy Mammoth Blog generally.
the Dealing With Obnoxious Boomers seminar
What I Should Have Said
So. In the dialogues above I said some things very right, full marks, and other things not so much. Let's address an area that could be improved for next time, because we all know there will definitely be a next time, and approximately 30 214 times after that in an average lifetime.
What sorts of things should you or could you say in the face of such impertinence? I'm not insisting that you say any of these things; you may be of a very patient and tolerant disposition, you may be hard of hearing, you may not speak English, you may have undergone a lobotomy while engaged in time travel; there could be reasons you don't care. But if you do, this seminar is for you.
Sample Ideal Dialogue #1
First, remember (or scroll up) where Male Boomer first addressed me? Here is a great tip for the female non-boomer addressed by the male boomer, and it's what I should have said when my Male Boomer first opened an orifice and uttered speech sounds at the side of my head.
Male Boomer: Blah blah blah blah blah? Because blah blah blah blah blah blah BLAH!
Jenny: I'm sorry. Have we been introduced?
MB: No.
Jenny: Then why are you addressing me? Are you some kind of pervert?
enjoy reaction, aaaand scene.
Now, that is particularly ballsy, and I don't expect a beginner to go that far the first time out. You can leave off the last part about the pervert. It's still good. The old-fashionedness of it will really throw the Male Boomer for a loop, at least long enough for you to draw yourself up to your full goddesslike height and stalk off, or, if you are sitting happily upon a rock in the sun and don't wish to move, to turn your head away and elegantly ignore him henceforth.
I do want to point out that since I missed my opportunity to do that and foolishly engaged the DB (typo, honest. No it wasn't) in conversation, my retort about never getting enough advice from his age group was the very next best thing to do. So I give myself a B+ for my performance in the actual dialogue. Which is not bad considering I was on my feet, after all. Not literally. I was on my bottom, which is getting disturbingly squishy since Spiro wouldn't have a systema class for like a million years, and even though he argues that I could be training on my own all the time just fine, he and I know both know that is rubbish, because apparently I don't exercise if I'm not paying for it, I sit on rocks texting, endangering my children, mouthing off my elders and drinking coffee. Just bein' real here.
Gentle readers, I would love to continue, but I think that's enough for tonight. I have already lavishly broken the Mammoth's directive that the posts be short, but I think this topic warrented extra attention the first time around. There will be more posts on this most fascinating subject, but until the next one I wish you a very fond good night.
And don't let the boomers bite.
Stay with me, breathe, it will be okay. I will very shortly leave the subject of grammar and get onto juicier things like sarcasm and possible sexual perversion.
Anyway, the difference between exclusive and non-exclusive adjectives goes like this:
Sentence A: I'm very attracted to your beautiful mother.
Sentence B: I'm very attracted to your beautiful sister.
Okay, so if we can assume that the hearer only has one mother, the adjective 'beautiful' in sentence A is obviously non-exclusive. It is clearly not trying to sort out a beautiful mother from one more bovine, or possibly ovine, in countenance. But in Sentence B, there could be a raft of hideous sisters, and the speaker is singling out only the beautiful one for his amorous intentions. So there is ambiguity if you don't know the sisters, perhaps even if you do. Is 'beautiful' here exclusive - I only want your beautiful sister, not those harpies who share her DNA, or non-exclusive - You have one sister who happens to be beautiful, and she rocks me like a Helen of Troy rocked that little crapweasel Paris.
So what do I mean by 'obnoxious boomers', then? Well, allow me to invent a further category. The sort-of-but-not-necessarily-exclusive adjective. I don't believe every single last solitary boomer to be obnoxious and inviting contempt. Certainly not the wonderful Prof Brinton, for example. Or my super cool mom and dad. But as a group. . .yeah, pretty obnoxious.
Which leads me to my post.
Dealing with Obnoxious Boomers
Part One of 30 216 (roughly, if the Lord tarries)
In my experience, boomers are adept at sticking their noses into the business of other people, younger people mainly, and offering advice. This is never, never a good idea. Boomer or not, giving unasked for advice is, in terms of social etiquette, equal to a leaky facial ulcer on a salad bar attendant. To those raised properly (as it is no longer fashionable to say, but so what), it marks you out as having been raised by particularly annoying wolves or perhaps angler fish.
AHA! You may exclaim. YOU JENNY YOU ARE OFFERING ADVICE, you steaming hypocrite!!!
I calmly and fetchingly ask you to take another breath, and point out that you were not compelled at taserpoint to visit the Holy Mammoth; you are here and reading of your own volition. Can we move on please.
Now, the species of homini boomera obnoxici really seems to have it in for mothers of young children. Of course, mothers of young children are attacked by all age groups at all times and in all terrain, but that's beside the point. This post is about boomer attacks in particular. The boomer, whether male or female, has a particularly cutting and trenchant form of attack, and it is in the best interests of the Xer/ whatever the next one after that is called to be well appraised of the boomer attack style, the better to meet it when it occurs.
Further to this I shall present a couple of stories/ dialogues, and then a seminar about the stories. These dialogues are recorded as factually as I can remember them (this is true of Mammoth storytelling generally, as the bare facts are really much funnier than any exaggeration or embellishment of them. Plus The Mammoth feels exaggeration to be a form of lying, and lying is both immoral and really unclassy. Henceforth you need never cry in astonishment, "O sweet Thor, did that really happen!?" The answer, gentle reader, will always be yes, unless clearly stated otherwise. Klar?
The Scene
A beach somewhere in Victoria
February 2011
I was sitting at the neighbourhood beach. Yes, I live near a beach; however windswept and rocky, it is a beach nonetheless, upon what F Scott Fitzgerald called 'the ragged edge of the world', the west coast of North America. And yes, you can sit on it in February without anything that you are fond of freezing and falling off. If you are reading this in Ontario and feeling jealous, can I just point out that you, too, are allowed to live here? That we are not surrounded by barbed wire and alsatians? It's a large country, but it's a free one. Okay? So no bellyaching. Google U Haul and leave me alone.
Anyway, I had two of my daughters with me, the 7 year old and the 3 1/2 year old. They were climbing all over the rocks as they have done, literally, since they could crawl. And yes, I know what literally means.
What followed were boomer encounters - two of them - within ten minutes of each other. My facebook friends have already heard the first dialogue, perhaps; they could skip to the second or read anyway for the elegant prose experience; that's up to them. Here we go with the first one.
Obnoxious Boomer Dialogue #1
A female boomer approaches Jenny as she minds her own business perched upon one of Victoria's many Interesting Rock Formations, happily slurping coffee and feeling some Actual Sunshine on her face.
Female Boomer: I see your children are down there playing on the rocks.
Jenny: Yes, that's right.
FB: Aren't you worried about them?
Jenny: No. (returns attention to consumption of tasty hot beverage)
FB: They have bare feet.
Jenny, taking in this fact without surprise and feeling the pleasant tingling sensation of impending sarcasm deployment combined with caffeine high: Yes, they do.
FB: They could get A Splinter!
Jenny, puzzled at the notion of gettting 'A Splinter' from bare rock formations: 'A Splinter'? It's okay, my kids have grown up on these rocks. They're fine.
FB: They're hard to get out, you know. They can be really Small. (mimes Small Splinter sticking in her finger)
Jenny: Is that right.
FB: Have YOU ever had A Splinter? They're really painful, you know!!!
Jenny: No, I'm forty years old and I've never had a splinter.
FB, whether testing her powers of counter-sarcasm with clumsy, spastic results or just really pathetically credulous I'm still not sure: OOH!!! Lucky YOU!!!
Exit Female Boomer, crazily, stage right.
Musical Interlude, maybe a little Lauren Hill for queenship/inspiration
ten minutes later. . .
Obnoxious Boomer Dialogue #2
Male Boomer, loudly and obnoxiously: DO YOU HAVE A LITTLE GIRL DRESSED UP IN GREEN
(Stay tuned for the special section of our following seminar, What I Should Have Said)
Jenny, looking up in a texting-induced fog combined with the afterglow of previously deployed sarcasm plus a caffeine high plus confusedly picturing a juvenile elf: . . .Huh? No!
MB: YOU DONT HAVE A LITTLE GIRL DRESSED IN A GREEN SUIT!
Jenny, remembering that Bridget is wearing a fuzzy teal pajama zip up thing because Jenny had lost the Battle of Oh Would You Please Just Wear Something Normal For Once earlier that day: Oh! Oh, yes, I do. Yup. Yup I do. Why.
MB: SHE IS DOWN ON THE ROCKS RIGHT BY THE WATER.
Jenny, glancing down to see that Bridget is, indeed, within 5 kilometers of Water: Yes, she's right there. That girl next to her is her older sister, see, the one RIGHT next to her. The one that looks like Janis Joplin on a bad day.
(Disclosure: I didn't say that last thing out loud. See, I told you you'd always know)
MB: WELL A MINUTE AGO SHE WAS RIGHT BY THE WATER. ONE SLIP AND SHE COULD HAVE FALLEN IN. WHILE YOU WERE /TEXTING/ (special weapons-grade judgemental obnoxious emphasis placed upon this last word in addition to the baseline obnoxiousness) YOU WOULDN'T HAVE EVEN NOTICED
Jenny: Thanks, I really can't get enough advice from boomers. (this, in contrast, is exactly what I should have said)
MB, turning a shade of alizarin that he would no doubt have insightfully described as 'red': WELL I'M WILLING TO TAKE YOUR SHIT FOR THE SAKE OF PREVENTING A POSSIBLE /TRAGEDY/!!!
Jenny: Okay, see you, bye bye.
Exit Male Boomer, stage left, flouncing as much as a (presumably) straight male will allow himself to flounce.
Now. This leads me to the next section of this post, and an exclusive and useful feature, indeed, of The Holy Mammoth Blog generally.
the Dealing With Obnoxious Boomers seminar
What I Should Have Said
So. In the dialogues above I said some things very right, full marks, and other things not so much. Let's address an area that could be improved for next time, because we all know there will definitely be a next time, and approximately 30 214 times after that in an average lifetime.
What sorts of things should you or could you say in the face of such impertinence? I'm not insisting that you say any of these things; you may be of a very patient and tolerant disposition, you may be hard of hearing, you may not speak English, you may have undergone a lobotomy while engaged in time travel; there could be reasons you don't care. But if you do, this seminar is for you.
Sample Ideal Dialogue #1
First, remember (or scroll up) where Male Boomer first addressed me? Here is a great tip for the female non-boomer addressed by the male boomer, and it's what I should have said when my Male Boomer first opened an orifice and uttered speech sounds at the side of my head.
Male Boomer: Blah blah blah blah blah? Because blah blah blah blah blah blah BLAH!
Jenny: I'm sorry. Have we been introduced?
MB: No.
Jenny: Then why are you addressing me? Are you some kind of pervert?
enjoy reaction, aaaand scene.
Now, that is particularly ballsy, and I don't expect a beginner to go that far the first time out. You can leave off the last part about the pervert. It's still good. The old-fashionedness of it will really throw the Male Boomer for a loop, at least long enough for you to draw yourself up to your full goddesslike height and stalk off, or, if you are sitting happily upon a rock in the sun and don't wish to move, to turn your head away and elegantly ignore him henceforth.
I do want to point out that since I missed my opportunity to do that and foolishly engaged the DB (typo, honest. No it wasn't) in conversation, my retort about never getting enough advice from his age group was the very next best thing to do. So I give myself a B+ for my performance in the actual dialogue. Which is not bad considering I was on my feet, after all. Not literally. I was on my bottom, which is getting disturbingly squishy since Spiro wouldn't have a systema class for like a million years, and even though he argues that I could be training on my own all the time just fine, he and I know both know that is rubbish, because apparently I don't exercise if I'm not paying for it, I sit on rocks texting, endangering my children, mouthing off my elders and drinking coffee. Just bein' real here.
Gentle readers, I would love to continue, but I think that's enough for tonight. I have already lavishly broken the Mammoth's directive that the posts be short, but I think this topic warrented extra attention the first time around. There will be more posts on this most fascinating subject, but until the next one I wish you a very fond good night.
And don't let the boomers bite.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
If, after this, I ever use the word 'webinar'
you may apply a forceful kick to my hind quarters. The use of a mule or small horse is recommended for extra trenchantness.*
*trenchant, on the other hand, is one of the best words ever. It will make many appearances on The Holy Mammoth, so if you don't like it, stop following this blog now. Trenchant, trenchant, trenchant. So there.
*trenchant, on the other hand, is one of the best words ever. It will make many appearances on The Holy Mammoth, so if you don't like it, stop following this blog now. Trenchant, trenchant, trenchant. So there.
Pants
Okay, what is this 'he puts his pants on one leg at a time' thing actually mean? Do semi divine figures and superheroes float up into the air and ram both legs in at a time? It makes no sense.*
*intentional naivete for comedic purposes. Please do not message the Mammoth to inform him/her (we're still not sure) that the point of the expression is that humans wear pants and semi divine beings such as centaurs, elves, Zeus and Braveheart don't. The Mammoth knows this.
*intentional naivete for comedic purposes. Please do not message the Mammoth to inform him/her (we're still not sure) that the point of the expression is that humans wear pants and semi divine beings such as centaurs, elves, Zeus and Braveheart don't. The Mammoth knows this.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
Knight to French Polynesia Four
Bridget, three, is trying to convince me that her queen made her bishop into a knight, and now he can jump "all over every EVERY one and swim aaaallll over the world." Chess with little kids sucks.
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